- Info on Tank Destroyer Command, unit histories, losses/kills etc.

- Zebra Mission, is there a report/book somewhere devoted to the experiences of the Zebra Mission Pershings (Other than Hunnicutt)?

But I have located the decimal files of the ETO AFV&W Section. So...someday.

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Originally posted by Rich:
Sorry Alex, I haven't gotten around to writing that book yet.

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In the meantime, what you wanna know.

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And it better not be the mean airspeed of an unladen Sherman.

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Total Write Offs
First Army (6 June 44 - 5 May 45)
M4 75mm - 1353
M4 76mm - 307
M4 105mm - 54
M26 - 1
M5 - 415
M24 - 13
Third Army (1 Aug 44 - 12 May 45)
M4 75mm - 642
M4 76mm - 437
M4 105mm - 46
M26 - 0
M5 - 291
M24 - 16
Ninth Army (9 Sep 44 - 5 May 45)
M4 75mm - 284
M4 76mm - 132
M4 105mm - 20
M26 - 0
M5 - 82
M24 - 33

ETO (6 Jun 44 - 20 Feb 45)
M7 HMC - 179
M8 HMC - 175
M20 AC - 364 (to 20 Jan 45)
M8 AC - 672
M32 ARC - 114
M10 TD - 474
M18 TD - 124
M36 TD - 72
M4A3E2 - 61 (included in above army totals)

Haven't analyzed the damaged yet, since that can only be tracked by day-to-day changes, which means copying about 2,000 more pages -- and a lot of calculating work. Also, I have yet to get around to pulling data for 6th Army Group, Italy, and Tunisia (let alone the Pacific). Eventually.

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Originally posted by Rich:
Okay, I'll give you a bit.

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Seriously, the info is great, thank you. I'll post some info of my own so we can compare, but IIRC I have a similar total, circa 4,100 Shermans.

I am surprised by the low number of TDs, do you think they were easier to repair, saw less combat, were waaayyy more effective, or is it just incomplete data?

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Will these hold you for now?

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Here are several data items regarding the loss of tanks on the Western Front or ETO.
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For the American only SHERMAN tank with the 75 and 76 mm guns the by month losses were:
The bracketed numbers represent the number of armored division and independent Tank Battalions active in combat by the end of the month.
June 1944 = 187 [2 and 8]
July 1944 = 280 [5 and 13]
August 1944 =433 [6 and 16]
Sept 1944 = 318 [8 and 16]
Oct 1944 = 199 [9 and 17]
Nov 1944 = 280 [10 and 21]
Dec 1944 = 576 [11 and 27]
Jan 1945 = 487 [13 and 29]
Feb 1945 = 390 [15 and 32]
March 1945 =380 [15 and 36]
Apr 1945 = 360 [15 and 38]
May 1945 = 224 15 and 40]
Total = 4114 or 12.2 Shermans each day of the action.
The US Army logistics people calculated combat loss as a percent of the ToE daily strength. So in June 1944 from June 6 thru June 30 the average daily ToE strength of Sherman tanks was 701 with a loss 187 for a rate of 26.7%.
If you calculate this equation out for the period of 6/6/44 thru 5/8/45 then the loss rate was 12.8%.
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Yet for the Americans their replacement was assured especially by February 1945.
Looking at the Sherman tank situation for the US Army in early February 1945 the following information is available:
TOE Requirement is 5255 Shermans versus actually assigned of 5434. In addition to this there were 940 Shermans in transit for the ETO. In otherwords the theater had 1119 Shermans as reserves [5434-5255=149+940=1119]. The planned reserve was 1840 so infact at this point the theater was short 721 Shermans in the reserve [1840-1119=721].
By the time of the Rhine River crossings the figures were actually assigned and reserve Shermans of 7620 aganist a plan total of 7779 or only a 159 short.
Inotherwords the troops on the field of battle were at TOE strengths and replacemnets could be there quickly to cover for those lost in combat.
The Germans were out quantitied.
3rd Army lost 308 light and 949 medium tanks to the end of the War, 10 light and 15 medium being lost from 22 April 1945. I suspect these were total losses. 3rd Army had six armoured divisions at various times and numerous independent battalions and engaged in some very costy non-mobile fighting in Lorraine.
As a comparision, 3rd Armoured Division, which was not part of 3rd Army, started in Normandy with 232 M4 Shermans and during the campaign in Europe till the end the division had 648 Shermans completely destroyed and another 700 knocked out, repaired and put back into operation. This was a loss rate of 581%.
By January 1945, tank losses were 800 per month for the US and 200 per month for the British. The total figure for US Army Shermans of all types lost between 20 November 1944 and 20 January 1945 was 1,137. Tank fighting was costly.

The total counted for the theater requirements as "on hand" included the following:

All operational tanks with units.
All deadlined tanks with units and maintenance units assigned to the theater.
All tanks in depots (both Continental and the UK in the case of the ETO) within the theater, or in transit to units from the depots.
All tanks on board convoys, assigne to the theater.
All tanks in CONUS, allocated to the theater, even those that were allocated, but hadn't left the factory yet.

The problem is that this accounting methodology allowed for no slack in the system at all. To illustrate what could happen, take the M4A3E2. Theater requested all 255 (which is what they were told were available, in reality it was 254, later reduced to 250), on 16 May. The first were landed across UTAH and OMAHA on 22 September. By 18 October, only 18 were on hand with units, in the field. Five months from request to delivery -- that was the problem, not the numbers produced by factories.

Your remark that "In other words the troops on the field of battle were at TOE strengths and replacemnets could be there quickly to cover for those lost in combat." is quite simply not correct. A simple survey of the operational strengths of the units in the field disproves it. I have shown you examples before, this time you gotta wait for the book.

As to the Germans being "outquantatied" I beg you to show me examples of modern warfare -- where the opponents were well matched technologically, both fielded modern, motivated, armies, and where the war lasted more than six months -- where the weaker side has won. All wars ultimately become wars of attrition.

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
...However, it appears as if the Soviet rate may have been (at least at Kursk which is thw only decent data I have) the opposite, about 25% damaged out of those knocked out.

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Thats strange.

Tanks Tanks
Destroyed Damaged Dates
2nd Gds TC 33 55 6-11
2nd TC 31 60 8-11
31st TC 97 52 7-11
3rd MC 112 84 6-11
5th Gds TC 119 78 6-11
6th TC 106 28 7-11
10th TC 2 - 9-11
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500 357

Note, this is the losses before the 12th of July (Prokhorovka). This shows a 60/40 split (destroyed to damaged). I believe the final figures were 55/45 (roughly). Keep in mind this is not a listing of what was listed by the Soviets as destroyed or damaged, but what we could determine from the records, and deduce from the strength changes, and deduce from their later repair records. So while we have very precise numbers, we do not always know how precisely accurate those numbers are.

So, what does Glantz say (and what is his source)?

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Originally posted by Chris Lawrence:
Still, the main point is that while something like less than 10% of the German tanks were written-off as destroyed, the Soviets were losing around half. As such, as the battle progresses, the German armor units are able to better maintain their strength than their Soviet counterparts. This probably has more to do with the logistics system (or lack there of) than anything related to tank design.

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During the Kursk battle, German units usually ended up in the control of the battlefield, and therefore they could deny the Soviets the opportunity to recover their knocked-out vehicles, and recover own ones. Also, Germans appear to have been cognizant of the Soviet ability to recover knocked out vehicles, and dedicated some efforts to burning knocked out Soviet tanks before moving on.

It is almost certainly caused by doctrine, habit and the structure of the repair and evacuation systems. The Germans were obsessed with recovery and repair of their armor. Any tank that was written off as actually destroyed actually had to be documented, and this usually includes a map showing where it was destroyed (many of these sketch maps survived and can be seen in the records).

On the other hand, I do not know what recovery and repar arrangements the Soviet had (they obviously had some), but my suspicion is that they had a definate shortage of spare parts, an inability to evacuate the tanks and a logistical system so heavily stressed that bringing parts forward, or damaged tanks to the rear was a real burden. As the Soviet system in peactime during the post-WWII period demonstrated an tendancy to manufacture lots of material without suficient spares to support them, then I suspect the same type of "central planning" behavoir is going on here. It appears to be a problem "inherent in the system."

I have seen similar odd disconnects with things like their ammunition supply and manufacture and with their evacuation of wounded, so it falls well into line with everything else I am seeing. The communist system did not do a good job of day-to-day adminstration in the post-War peace, and I see no reason to believe it did so during war.

1st Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
1,049 (889) - 706(646) - 334(283)

2nd Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
??? - 189 - NA - NA

3rd Guards Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
669(471) - 606(???) - 35(???) - 25(???)

3rd Guards Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
669(471) - 606(???) - 35(???) - 25(???)

4th Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
1,283(859) - 1,189(786) - 80(61) - 14(12)

5th Guards Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
445(361) - 445(361) - NA - NA

Figures in parenthesis are total writeoffs. All from Col. Glantz "Kursk", he quotes M. Kolomietz and M. Spirin, Kurskaya duga, 1998 pg. 78.

The ratio of knockouts-to-writeoffs is indeed 75%, my recollection was incorrect, it was the Germans that salvaged roughly a two thirds of their vehicles.

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Originally posted by Alex H:

1st Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
1,049 (889) - 706(646) - 334(283)

5th Guards Tank Army
Losses - Combat - Technical - Other
445(361) - 445(361) - NA - NA

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I am at home, working on my book, and my copy of Glantz is at work but ..... something looks very odd about those figures (especially in relation to mine).

First: What date are these figures from and what period do they cover?

Second: Are they a "status" report (we have this many tanks in our repair stations on the 24th....) or are they cumulative (from 5 July to 24 July, we had....)

Third: My figures are showing 50-60% destroyed, his more like 81%(5th Gds TA) and 87% (1st Gds TA). Why is there such a difference, we are covering the same units?

Fourth: What is the difference between "combat", "technical" and "other"?

Fifth: Why are the combat and technical figures for the 5th Gds Tank Army the same (looks like a typo)?

It could be that the figures you are quoting may be after they repaired a number of tanks and put them back in action, meaning the figures are really close to a listing of destroyed tanks, but there may have been a lot damaged and already repaired that were not listed. This list seems to indicate that only 49-50% of the tanks were lost to combat. This is hard to explain, as rarely do "technical" losses destroy tanks. I am guessing that technical losses is also some type of combat loss.

Took a look at Glantz' book, and this answered most of my questions:

First: First and Fifth Guards Tank Army data covers 3 - 31 August. This is an entirely different period than covered by my data (4-18 July).

Second: I gather by the dates given, these are cumulative figures for the period, which in itself raises other questions.

Third: The figures in parenthesis are the number of T-34s, not "total write-offs". As such, one cannot calculated the percent damaged versus destroyed from these figures (and therefore there is no contradiction between our figures here).

Fourth: Still interested in knowing what the difference is between "combat", "technical" and "other", but now that I understand that the first column is a "totals" column, it all becomes clearer.

Fifth: Now that I understand that the first column is a totals column, there is no confusion here.

Still do not know what they are counting as lost: 1)only destroyed and not repairable, or 2) destroyed and damaged (whether repaired or not), or 3) destroyed and those damaged that had not been repaired as of 31 August 1943.

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Originally posted by Mike J:

I also think the Soviets may have been slower in recovering vehicles since their recovery and maintenance assets were pooled at higher levels than in German armored formations.

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